Gummy Legos

I'm sure you've seen this video:

http://www.boredpanda.com/edible-lego-brick-gummy-diy-king-of-random-grant-thompson/

It's an instructional video for how to make gummy Legos.

If you have a Lego-obsessed child, perhaps many people have posted a link to this video on your Facebook wall. Maybe, after the fifth or sixth time someone did that, you casually browsed Amazon.com for Lego silicon molds and, even more casually, ordered a few of them to be delivered to you for free via Amazon Prime. And maybe your Lego-obsessed child saw the molds after they arrived at your door, and pestered you daily about what they were for. And MAYBE, it rained on a Saturday morning, and you needed an activity to do with your child.

If it all happened that way for you, then stop reading. You know this story. You lived this story. If not, well, here's a recipe and a little exposition. 

To make Lego gummies, you need the following ingredients:

2 packets gelatin

1 package of jello

1/2 c cold water

1/4 c corn syrup

Mix the water and corn syrup together until the corn syrup is dissolved. The water has to be cold, according to the video, or your gummies won't be clear.  This step takes a long time (because the water is cold)...but not as long as the next step. 

Now, you will put your water/syrup solution into a pot over NO heat. You will pour in the two gelatin packets and the package of jello, and you will stir this cold mixture until all of the lumps disappear.

The lumps will be copious. You will start stirring this concoction with your child who will exclaim:

"It turned purple!"

"It smells like grape!"

And the always heart-melting, "I always wanted to cook this with you!"

But soon, the character of those statements -- commensurate with your child's age, level of patience, and mood --- will change:

"There sure are a lot of lumps."

"Why it take so long to stir all the lumps?"

"Are we done now?"  ("No, we will never be done.")

At some point, your child may dismount the step stool he/she was standing on and begin singing, "Lego Gummies, Lego Gummies, Lego Gummies," while spinning in the middle of your kitchen like a girl tripping at a Dead concert (or Phish, for you youngsters).

And then you will say, "Do you want to go into the living room and play with your Legos while I keep stirring?"  Yes, he/she will want to do that.

So you will continue stirring, attempting to get all the white bits to dissolve, and your kid will have a luxuriously long Lego  session:  plenty of time to switch around heads on many, many, many Lego men. 

Finally, it will look like this:

There will still be tiny lumps in it, but you won't care. 

Time to get this stuff on some heat. Set your burner to medium low. (On my cooktop, the heat setting is numbered 1 through 9, and I chose 4.)  Set your pot of goo onto the burner and cook until fully dissolved, stirring occasionally so the stuff doesn't burn. When it's clear, you're done. Here's what mine looked like:

Not remarkably different in the picture from the pre-cooked stuff, but the liquid went from slightly opaque to see-through. 

Next, the video says you can pour your liquid straight into your molds now, but that doesn't resolve the problem of the foam that has developed on top. That won't make a pretty gummy. The video's suggestion for dealing with foam is to pour your liquid into a heat resistant glass, let it cool for 10 minutes, skim the foamy film from the top, put the liquid into a condiment bottle and then squirt it into your molds. Here's what I did:

Gravy fat separator:  probably gets used once a year, if that, around the holidays, and IF I make a turkey. Worked great for this application.  Kitchen multitasker:  Alton Brown would be proud. 

Now, you're ready to dish out your gummy syrup into the molds. Or you would be if your molds were dry.

Ideally, you would have unpackaged your molds and washed them at least a day before embarking on your gummy adventure. But this is not the ideal world. This is the world in which you washed these little molds with all of their crevices mere minutes before starting your series of long, slow stirs. So before you dish up your liquid, be sure to dry the inside of your molds with a hairdryer to ensure all the little crannies are dry. It won't do to go pouring your liquid into wet molds, thus, (potentially) ruining the syrup you've just stirred your left arm off for. 

Your strange hairdryer activity will draw the attention of your child again, who will come into the bathroom to watch. Your spouse might come into the bathroom too, and remark how surprised he/she is that those molds take so long to dry. 

"Nooks and crannies," you'll say. 

Finally, your molds will be dry. And you and your child will return to the kitchen to dish out the goo into the molds. You'll do it; child will watch. This stuff is hot and sticky. Don't let the kid touch it. 

Once dished into the molds, your child will want to eat them immediately. You will explain that we have to wait for them to cool and set up. 

"How long," the little cherub will ask.

And you will reply, "Five hours," which he/she will not fully comprehend, but will accurately describe as "a long time" before immediately asking again whether he/she can eat a Lego man gummy.

Finally, after lunch, and some play, and a nap, and a stint in the fridge to hurry the gummies along, not quite five hours will have elapsed. Time for a gummy snack!

How did they turn out?

"Yummy!," your child will exclaim. 

Yep, we'll make 'em again.